


Despite Everything

by DuskDragon39



Series: Symbiosis [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aborted Genocide Route, Angst, Chara Is Not Evil, Deal With It, Frisk is not good, Gen, Other, Sans is only mentioned, So I finally wrote it, Soft Chara, The Absolute God of Hyperdeath, This has been rattling around in my brain, UH BATTLES, Where people actually can get hurt, Yes I know the fight is out of order, headcannons, i dk, it's midnight rn, learning MERCY, many headcannons, mentions of neutral routes, mild swearing, sort-of happy ending?, they're learning. Slowly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 11:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9656510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuskDragon39/pseuds/DuskDragon39
Summary: Despite everything, it’s still you.- Chara, New Home, 2XXX.Remember where you came from? The first loop? Where you killed everyone?I mean, just look how far we've come.It's over. Finally. It's over.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This has been rattling around in my brain for.. awhile.  
> Enjoy, I suppose?
> 
> This takes place after an aborted Genocide Run. 
> 
> Which is where Sans comes in. 
> 
> Because Sans.
> 
> And yes, I'm aware that the battle is slightly out of order.

_It’s you!_

_-Chara, Home, 2XXX_

 

* * *

 

 

He stood before them, ears flopping _(_ _over his fur, green shirt as bright as the day they had last_ _)_ \- No.

That wasn’t them.

 _:Chara?:_ They whispered in their mind, unsure-

 

He turned.

 

“Howdy! Are you there Chara? It’s me, your best friend.”

 

Frisk did not like where this was going. Neither did their partner, from the feel of the thing.

 

_(Asriel- )_

 

Suddenly their vision blanked. A wave of power knocked them off their feet. They looked up. And up. And-

 

Fuck.

 

The God of Hyperdeath was waiting. He spoke, voice nearly knocking them off their feet again.

 

“ASRIEL DREEMUR”

 

_:Really? Dramatic much?:_

 

_(The equivalent of a mental shrug passed through their mind.)_

 

The fight began.

 

_(It’s the end.)_

 

* * *

 

 

They died almost instantly after Asriel pulled the whole “God mode” thing. To be fair, they weren’t really expecting all that much. It took them by surprise. The wave of stars blasted out from the void and punctured their head.

 

They died.

 

They should have been used to it by now.

 

But nope….still annoying.

 

Something was different this time, however. A sense of determination and stubbornness, welling up from both them and their partner. They both refused. They had come to far to be beaten by a stuck-up, self important, egotistical, souless-

Alright. Maybe that was going too far.

 

But still.

 

_(Their partner gave them the mental equivalent of the “I’m absolutely done with your crap face.”)_

 

Fine.

 

Three seconds later, they were back, Asriel- they refused to call him by that ridiculous name- _(Again the mental equivalent of someone sticking out their tongue at them)_ still taunting them. They held on to their hopes, their dreams. They had come too far to give them up now.

 

Asriel was still monologing. Frisk ignored it and focused on dodging. They couldn’t afford to get hit- not enough hp. They ducked and weaved among the lasers and swords. Dodge the lightning. Dodge the secondary attack. Get hit. Heal. Repeat.

 

They easily fell into the rhythm of fighting and dodging- compared to the skeleton, Asriel was _easy_.

 

Pain lanced through them as their soul was split by a… Was that a ray gun? Seriously?

 

They died again. Refused. Came back.

 

_(Keep holding on.)_

 

It fell into a pattern again. Dodge. Avoid the hole in reality. Dodg-

 

_Wait what?_

 

It was their turn now. Frisk edged carefully to the edge of the pitch black hole that had opened in the middle of the floor. It looked like a piece of the non-existent floor had somehow broken off and dissolved.

 

_(He’s too powerful! Reality itself is breaking now!)_

 

_:But how-?!:_

 

_(LV! Except this is SOUL power we’re facing!)_

 

They remembered what they were fighting for: A future. A- well not home, per say. A place they could call their own.

 

They remembered that skeleton. Their fight. The taste of his-

 

_(No. Not now.)_

 

They held on. Kept dodging. Wiped the sweat out of their eyes. Cursed Asriel for making MERCY so hard to attempt. They ignored his continued monologing- seriously. One does not need to make a ten minute long evil villain speech. Sans had managed it in four lines, after all.

 

Although, come to think of it-

 

His voice crept again into their consciousness.

 

“Let’s see what good your DETERMINATION is against THIS!!”

 

Great. Multiple exclamation points. Never a good sign.

 

The goat-person in front of them seemed to grow and stretch, flesh twisting in ways it was never meant to. His head was thrown back. Mouth unhinged and fell open. The rest of his body vanished, replaced by something that looked suspiciously like the Gaster Blasters.

 

It laughed.

 

Flowey always did have a dramatic streak.

 

A light seemed to grow from it, breaking reality wherever it touched. Darkness crumbled, and lights flashed. Beneath it all was a sense of vast emptiness; a timeless void into which the whole world would crumble. Frisk stumbled back, soul and head pounding. Desperately they turned to run and flee but to no avail. The light overtook them, washing over their head with a searing brilliance. And with it pain. The light seared their soul, then their flesh. They were crumbling, molecules stripped by the unforgiving light. They were fading, trying to hold on, grasping at _something._ Their soul split, cracks running through it. Their consciousness slipped into darkness. Then nothing. Nothing at all.

 

_Chara had watched the whole thing. Watched as their partner (friend?) fought their OTHER best friend. Watched as they died. Watched as their combined determination healed Frisk’s SOUL- how it let them continue past the point where they should have been dead. (They weren’t dead of course. They never were.) Then Asriel launched this attack. Beneath them Frisk lay slumped on the ground, time slowing around them._

 

_They laughed at the irony._

 

 

_Asriel finally had become who he had once wanted to be. But at what cost?_

 

_Even time was broken._

 

 

_They laughed and they laughed. But it wasn’t funny._

 

_Beneath them Frisk tried once more to reach out their hand. Their soul was broken, blood-red cracks interlacing the pristine, bright red._

 

_Reality had been broken. Shattered into shards that were beyond repair. They snorted. Still ironic that… after all this… It’s not even a human who presents the greatest threat to their family (Or was a human part of their family now?). They looked down again. Frisk had lapsed into unconsciousness._

 

 _A wave of emotion filled Chara. Despite_ everything _, it was still_ them _. It was always them. Though Frisk had changed… Though Chara had changed… It was still them. If it was for the worse or for the better, they didn’t know. But they had to do something. Frisk… Sans… They had shown Chara that maybe there was another way. That if someone as broken as they each were could heal, then perhaps so could Chara. And now they_ could _do something. Now they_ had _to do something._

 

_Perhaps-_

 

_Swiftly they changed their perspective to be directly in front of Frisk. They were still unconscious. Carefully Chara picked up their soul. The cracks in it were growing, showing the darker parasite of Chara’s soul underneath it. Chara grimaced when they saw it, the marks of their possession of Frisk’s body and soul glowing in the odd not-light. They concentrated for a moment, thinking._

 

_Carefully they pushed the soul back together. They used their own soul – their own determination- to bind the cracks together. They whispered in the other’s ear: “Stay determined, Frisk.”_

 

_And suddenly it wasn’t just them saying it, but everyone. Asgore. Toriel. Even the damn skeleton. They were all there somehow, their combined voices whispering, whispering:_

 

“ _You are the future of Humans and Monsters.”_

 

“ _Stay determined, my child.”_

 

_It was a heavy burden. But perhaps it was one they could shoulder together._

 

 _Frisk opened their eyes, and, for the first time, actually_ saw _Chara. Chara simply smiled, held out a hand._

 

“ _Come on, partner,” they said. “We have a battle to finish.”_

 

_Frisk’s face lit up. They reached out and grabbed Chara’s hand, pulling themselves up as they did so._

 

_Together, they turned to face Asriel Dreemur: Fallen angel, soulless monster, God of Hyperdeath, and innocent child._

 

_And together, they refused._

 

* * *

 

 

 

The God of Hyperdeath collapsed back into a boy. Reality came back. And Chara faded once more, confined to the back of Frisk’s mind. Once again Asriel stood there, sobs shaking his body.

 

Deep in the recesses of Frisk’s mind, Chara felt them offer up control.

 

_(Frisk? What are you doing?)_

 

Frisk pushed Chara into control of their shared body and said simply _:He’s your brother._ _It’s up to you whether to forgive him or not. Though… I think we both know that MERCY is always the harder option._ _:_

 

Hesitantly, Chara stepped towards Asriel. They wanted to scream, to cry, to do something to let him know that they were still there. He just kept sobbing, the tears streaming silently down his face. Silently, Chara approached. They reached out and for the first time in centuries, hugged their brother.

 

As they did so, memories began to resurface. Chara and Asriel meeting for the first time, Chara barely able to walk. Making pie. Learning Toriel’s lessons. And then the darker ones. The buttercups. The days of lying in bed, stomach in agony, the blisters coating their mouth, their stomach, their tongue. Trying to force Asriel to kill the humans, only to have him sacrifice both their lives.

 

They remembered living as a wraith, unable to leave their burial site, watching as Toriel saved human after human, using them as replacements to ease the hole in her heart. Growing more and more angry, blaming Asriel for their death and gradually growing to hate life. Attaching themselves to Frisk, a human who already knew that the world functioned on the basic principle of “Kill or be killed.” Their combined anger growing so strong that they wiped out the entirety of the underground.

 

Sans. The never-ending battle. LV grown so strong that it overruled common sense, imbibing them with a sense of power, and of bloodlust.

 

The reset.

 

The loops spent trying to learn how to trust and how to love- not LOVE, but love. MERCY was hard. FIGHTing was easy. Too easy. Too easy to slip back onto their old habits. They had made it though. Despite everything. This was it.

 

The last journey.

 

The last RESET.

 

It was over.

 

And as all of this sped through Chara’s mind, they began to cry. Tears ran faster and faster down their cheeks. They clutched desperately at Asriel’s sweater, trying not to let go. As they did so, Frisk took back control of one of their arms, joining in on the hug.

 

I’m sorry, Chara wanted to say. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I tried and I tried and I couldn’t do it- I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry. I’m not your hope. I never was- I killed you. It’s my fault. It always was. I’m sorry.

 

But they couldn’t. Not in Frisk’s body. Not when everyone in the underground was still contained in Asriel’s SOUL. Not when they could all hear them.

 

They stood there for a moment. Three children. Fallen. Broken. Lost. Three that had found MERCY in a world of death. Three that had found love against all odds. Who had- somehow- found their way home.

 

Finally, Asriel lifted his head and met Chara’s eyes. “I don’t want to let go,” he said. Then he jerked backwards, startled at what he saw reflected in Chara’s eyes. Swiftly, Chara kicked Frisk back into control. He couldn’t know. Not now.

 

Somewhere beyond, Asriel had been speaking. “- but you’re not Chara are you?” he asked. Frisk gave a small start and then shook their head. He paused for a minute. “I thought I saw… Anyways. What is your name?”

 

Frisk smiled softly. No one had ever asked them that. Except for Chara, and they didn’t really count here.

 

_(Excuse me?)_

 

 _:You literally share my SOUL. You don’t have an excuse,:_ they thought back wryly. They turned their attention back to Asriel.

 

“Frisk,” they said, voice hoarse from disuse.

 

“My name’s Frisk.”

 

Asriel smiled slightly. “Frisk. That’s a nice name.”

 

And then he turned, said something else, and walked a little ways away. Tears pooled slightly in Frisk’s eyes, and, for once, neither Chara nor Frisk was sure who shed them.

 

And then it was over.

 

Finally, over 200 resets, XXX years, hundreds dead, and hundreds saved.

 

It was over.

 

They were free.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Despite everything, it’s still you._

 

_\- Chara, New Home, 2XXX._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
